Persistent complement dysregulation with signs of thromboinflammation in active Long Covid

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg7942

Some individuals can endure persistent, debilitating symptoms for many months after an initial severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. However, the factors underpinning these health issues, called Long Covid, are poorly understood. Comparing the blood of patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection with that of uninfected controls, Cervia-Hasler et al. found that patients experiencing Long COVID exhibited changes to blood serum proteins indicating activation of the immune system’s complement cascade, altered coagulation, and tissue injury (see the Perspective by Ruf). At the cellular level, Long Covid was linked to aggregates comprising monocytes and platelets. These findings provide a resource of potential biomarkers for diagnosis and may inform directions for treatments. —Sarah H. Ross

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice #HealthSelfDefense

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‘Brilliant at survival’ — Long Covid afflicts trans and bi patients at highest rates

https://clearhealthcosts.com/blog/2024/02/long-covid-challenges-trans-bisexual-lgbtq-patients/

“God, when I said I wanted to be a little boy, I didn’t mean it like this.”
That’s how Cy, a 23-year-old trans man, described how he feels living with the severe physical pain and neurological deterioration caused by Long Covid.
“I feel simultaneously like I’ve become both an infant and geriatric,” he said in a phone interview. A 2023 college graduate, he once looked forward to days filled with creating art: Forming sculptures, composing print layouts and using his new graphic design degree in his first “big job” in the industry.

And art wasn’t Cy’s only avenue for self-expression. “I had just gotten top surgery last summer,” he said. “I wanted to get more active because I was just starting my transition.”
But Cy, who spoke on condition that we use only his first name, contracted Covid-19 in August 2023. His initial bout of the virus sent him to the emergency room with severe vertigo and nausea. Even after getting the antiviral Paxlovid and going home, the fatigue he felt never went away — instead, it got worse and developed into frightening new symptoms.

“It started getting really hard to take care of myself on a daily basis. I felt in my muscles like I was being stretched too thin, like taffy or something,” he said. He dragged himself to the emergency room, to doctors, to specialists, with each appointment yielding little in the way of effective treatments. Meanwhile, he developed extreme lightheadedness, tremors and nerve pain, and his heart rate frequently rose to the point where he would pass out.

“I kept pushing it because I had to. I have to eat. I had to do my job,” he said. But in late 2023, the symptoms became too much. Cy is now forced to spend most of his days in bed without the strength to address his basic needs. Exertions like getting up to eat or use the bathroom can leave his entire body sore in the days after. The mental fog feels like his brain is “turning itself inside out,” he said.

Roughly 15% of all adults in the U.S. have or have had Long Covid, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s October 2023 Household Pulse Survey. “Long Covid” encompasses a throng of debilitating symptoms and long term effects brought about by Covid-19. Some of the most common include post-exertion malaise, gastrointestinal problems, heart palpitations and cognitive issues. It can impact every organ system of the body. The physical ramifications can last for years: Some people are now in their fourth year of symptoms.

Cy is not only one of the millions of Americans with Long Covid — as a trans man, he’s part of a population that is overrepresented in these millions. Less than 2% of U.S. adults are trans or nonbinary, yet nearly 24% of all transgender adults report that they have experienced Long Covid. Bisexual adults report Long Covid cases at the same percentage rate (24%). That makes trans adults and bisexual adults, along with disabled adults, the demographic groups that are experiencing Long Covid in the highest percentages in the country.

“I used to be really, really competent at navigating the healthcare system. And now I’m struggling,” Cy said. “Before, I could ring out 15 phone calls in an afternoon and play phone tag all day. Did I enjoy it? No, not really, who does? But I could do it,” he continued. “And now I just can’t — there’s a lot of things that I just can’t do anymore.” As a result of Long Covid, Cy was also diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), conditions marked by severe fatigue, brain fog and lightheadedness, among other symptoms.

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice #HealthSelfDefense

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Anticapitalist Covid Conscious Reading Club

Let Them Eat Plague!

june 7

access our discord to see the details

https://linktr.ee/healthselfdefense_

"The cold truth of the matter is that the motive behind COVID minimization is greed and social control. Actually solving the pandemic was never in the cards of the capitalist world. the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception.

This is not simple negligence on the part of those who govern and shape our society.
It amounts to social murder: the establishment of policies that place large numbers of people on the path to an early and unnatural death. You have the right to health, and that right is being deliberately stripped away from you with a policy of mass infection"

https://clarion.unity-struggle-unity.org/let-them-eat-plague/

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice #HealthSelfDefense

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Ignoring COVID is patriarchal, queers: let’s mask up

https://camaradademian.substack.com/p/ignoring-covid-is-patriarchal-queers

How can we talk about liberating the queer community from oppression while being complicit in eugenics? “Vulnerability” shouldn’t be an excuse for not caring, but rather another reason to do so.

I believe in the power of change, self-criticism, and solidarity. This means that just as we need self-criticism to fight against LGBTQphobic chauvinism in anti-capitalist spaces, we need self-criticism to fight against ableist chauvinism.

Ableist chauvinism wants us to separate ourselves from disability, to punish it, to ignore mass disability events because we need to produce and consume. Most people don’t know what’s happening, or they feel powerless to stop it, or both.

Queers are not immune to propaganda. The state has been spreading misinformation about COVID since 2020. Here are the facts, comrade:

At least 50% of COVID infections are asymptomatic.

At least 10% of infections end in long COVID.

Reinfections destroy us. There is no way to “train” the immune system because it is not a muscle. There is a common misconception that exposure to harmful germs strengthens the immune system. Viral diseases like COVID, flu, measles weaken the immune system, leaving the possibility of lasting damage. The reality is that you don’t build your immunity with repeated infections, vaccines strengthen the immune system by teaching it to recognize pathogens without all the risks. Focusing on infection prevention is key.

Rapid antigen tests give many false negatives. A rapid antigen test only successfully detects about 60% of early symptomatic infections and about 22% of asymptomatic infections. PCR and molecular tests are the most accurate tests.

COVID spreads and moves like cigarette smoke. Think of the people around you and yourself as people who smoke all day long. It becomes more visual to understand how COVID moves.

In infections with symptoms, it takes a couple of days to show them, which means that you are infecting for at least a couple of days without knowing it.

Vaccines are not preventing infections, reinfections or long COVID. Vaccines have been crucial in significantly reducing mortality and hospitalization rates from severe infections. However, the levels of antibodies produced decrease significantly in the months following vaccination. Every infection involves new mutations that make the virus more complex. To honor the work of vaccines, we must avoid creating more variants. Vaccines are not an excuse to not wear a mask.

You are infectious with COVID for at least 10 days.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a great deal of propaganda around the normalization of the disease and a meritocratic way of understanding immunity (the best is that you will never be affected, the weak is that you will ‘have to die’ for prosperity).

The new variants are complex because of 1) the continuous transmission that we do between humans, as well as that which occurs between humans and other animals, creating more complex mutations; 2) the lack of research, lack of socialization of barriers against COVID, of antivirals when you have infections, and of PCR or molecular COVID tests. All of this is not isolated from the world of oppression where we live, in fact, that is where its origin is. Care against COVID is community care for workers, disabled, queer, anticolonial struggle and against all forms of oppression.

We have the tools to fight against eugenics, let’s organize!

“Every chain of transmission that is broken COUNTS. Every person who doesn’t get sick, who doesn’t lose THAT WEEK OF WORK, who doesn’t DIE or become DISABLED, from the smallest of inconveniences to the BIGGEST of losses – every single one of these things COUNTS.” - Becca on the Death Panel podcast

“You interrogate your privilege, but never your abled privilege.
You educate yourself about oppression, but never ableism. You love your queer, BIPOC, working class, abolitionist, anti-racist, feminist, immigrant communities, but never seem to remember that disabled people exist in these and every community. (…)

Abled supremacy means that many of you mistakenly think that if you do get COVID and if you end up with long COVID, that the state will take care of you or that your community will. You believe this because you do not know about the lived reality of disability in this country. Abled privilege means that you don’t have to listen to disabled people or learn about ableism and abled supremacy. Our government does not care about the disabled people that already exist. So, if you think it will care for you if you become disabled from COVID, as millions more will, then that is a function of your ableist ignorance. (…)

Pandemics, climate change, pollution and toxins have tilted the scales and upped the ante that disability is our collective future. You may have been able to avert your eyes from state violence, poverty and crisis, but what about when the very air you breathe becomes a threat? What about when there is nowhere left to escape climate disasters? Individual safety by itself is a myth. There is no individual safety without collective safety and collective safety requires that no one is safe unless everyone is safe.

I do not wish to be your token politicized POC disabled friend or comrade. If you care about me, then I also need you to care about disabled people and disabled communities because if you don’t care about them, then you don’t care about me. If you care about me then I need you to check your abled entitlement and challenge abled supremacy, especially the current abled culture that deems disabled people as disposable in this pandemic. (..)

I need you to not only say that you are in solidarity with disabled people or that you value disability justice; I need you to practice it. I need you to engage in the hard conversations with fellow abled people about vaccines and boosters, masks and canceling indoor in-person gatherings, unnecessary travel and work.

Many disabled people have been doing this labor because we do not have a choice. We have been losing connection, yelled at, mocked, ridiculed, told we are overreacting, harassing or controlling simply because we do not wish to die. Simply because we do not want others to die. Simply because we cannot afford to risk being at the mercy of a triaged medical system that may deem us unworthy of treatment because of our disability, illness, class, race, skin color, accent, immigration status, gender, size. Simply because many of us knew what was coming, what is coming, and we knew we could not stop it without you. And we knew you would always choose your own comfort and pleasure over collective safety, over interdependence. How to put into words the demoralizing impact of needing people who do not need you?

The solution cannot be that everyone has to get COVID. That is eugenics because many disabled high risk people will die and those who do not die will have serious complications and lifelong impacts to their health and wellbeing via COVID and the possibility of long COVID. Do not buy into this eugenic thinking that expects the most vulnerable to be sacrificed. Long Covid is real and it can happen to anyone.” You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence | Leaving Evidence

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice #HealthSelfDefense

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Ignorar el covid es patriarcal, queers: ¡usemos máscaras!

https://camaradademian.substack.com/p/ignorar-el-covid-es-patriarcal-queers

¿cómo podemos hablar de la liberación de la opresión a la comunidad queer mientras se es cómplice de la eugenesia? La “vulnerabilidad” no debería ser una excusa para no cuidar, sino una razón más para hacerlo.

Creo en el poder del cambio, autocritica y solidaridad. Esto significa que de igual manera que necesitamos la autocrítica para luchar contra el chovinismo LGTBIQfóbico en espacios anticapitalistas, necesitamos autocrítica para luchar contra el chovinismo capacitista.

El chovinismo capacitista pretende que nos separemos de la discapacidad, que la castiguemos, que ignoremos los eventos de discapacidad en masa porque necesitamos producir y consumir. La mayoría de las personas no saben lo que está sucediendo, o se sienten impotentes para detenerlo, o ambas cosas.

Les queers no somos inmunes a la propaganda, el estado lleva desinformando sobre el COVID desde el 2020, aquí tienes los datos, camarada:

El 50% de las infecciones son asintomáticas.

Mínimo 10% de las infecciones acaban en COVID persistente.

Las reinfecciones nos destrozan. No hay forma de ‘entrenar’ el sistema inmunitario porque no es un músculo, el daño de las infecciones es acumulativo. Toda propaganda que te hable de ‘entrenar’ el sistema inmune lo que hace es mentirte para hacerte sentir más tranquilo al estar expuesto a infecciones que hacen daño.

Los tests de antígenos rápidos dan muchos falsos negativos. Un test de antígeno rápido solo logra detectar con éxito 60% de las infecciones tempranas sintomáticas y el 22% de las infecciones asintomáticas (ontariohealth tiene una guía de cómo poder sacarles el mejor partido ya que son los test más asequibles para la población general).

El COVID se propaga y mueve como el humo de un cigarro, piensa en las personas de tu alrededor y en ti como personas que están todo el día fumando, se hace más visual entender cómo se mueve el COVID.

En las infecciones con síntomas se tarda un par de días en dar los síntomas lo que quiere decir que estás por lo menos un par de días infectando sin saberlo.

Las vacunas son importantes pero hay que añadir formas de protección como la mascarilla y purificadores de aire. Los niveles de anticuerpos producidos disminuyen significativamente en los meses posteriores a la vacunación. Las vacunas no están evitando reinfecciones, ni el contagio, ni las secuelas persistentes del COVID.

Eres infeccioso de COVID por lo menos 10 días.

Desde el comienzo de la pandemia ha habido una gran propaganda en torno a la normalización de la enfermedad y una forma meritocrática de entender la inmunidad (el mejor es que nunca se verá afectado, el débil es que ‘tendrá que morir’ por la prosperidad).

Las nuevas variantes son complejas por 1) la continua transmisión que nos hacemos entre humanos como la que se dan entre humanos y otros animales haciendo mutaciones más complejas; 2) la falta de investigación, falta de socialización de las barreras contra el COVID, de antivirales cuando se tiene infecciones y de test de COVID de PCR o moleculares. Todo esto no está asilado del mundo de opresión donde vivimos, de hecho, ahí es donde está su origen. El cuidado contra el COVID es cuidado comunitario lucha obrera, discapacitada, queer, anticolonial y contra toda forma de opresión.

Tenemos las herramientas para luchar contra la eugenesia, ¡organicémonos!

“Toda cadena de transmisión que se logre romper CUENTA. Cada persona que no se llega a enfermar, que no llega a perder ESA SEMANA DE SU TRABAJO, que no MUERE ni adquiere una DISCAPACIDAD, desde el más mínimo de los inconvenientes, hasta la MAYOR de las pérdidas: cada una de estas cosas CUENTA”. -Becca en el podcast Death Panel

“Interrogas tus privilegios, pero nunca tu privilegio capacitista.
Te educas sobre la opresión, pero nunca sobre el capacitismo. Amas a tus comunidades queer, BIPOC (personas negras, indígenas y racializadas), de clase trabajadora, abolicionistas, antirracistas, feministas, inmigrantes, pero nunca parece que recuerdes que las personas discapacitadas existen en estas y en todas las comunidades. (…)

No deseo ser tu amiga o camarada discapacitada y POC (persona racializada) tokenizada y politizada. Si te importo, entonces también necesito que te importen las personas discapacitadas y las comunidades discapacitadas, porque si no te importan, entonces no te importo yo. Si te importo, entonces necesito que revises tu derecho capacitista y que desafíes la supremacía capacitista, especialmente la cultura capacitista actual que considera a las personas discapacitadas como desechables en esta pandemia. (…)

“Deberíamos enmarcar esta pandemia en términos de interdependencia.

Este es el marco político correcto porque es el único moral y humano. La interdependencia reconoce que nuestra supervivencia está entrelazada, que estamos conectados y lo que tú haces impacta a los demás. Si esta pandemia no ha hecho nada más, ha iluminado cuán horrible es nuestra sociedad valorando y practicando la interdependencia. La interdependencia es la única salida a la mayoría de los problemas más urgentes que enfrentamos hoy. Si no entendemos que somos interdependientes con el planeta, como especie no sobreviviremos. (…)

La cultura capacitista te enseña a actuar como si fueras independiente, a creer en el mito de la independencia. Rechaza esto. Abraza la interdependencia y entiende que es la única forma en que podremos poner fin a esta pandemia. Entiende que si centramos a las personas discapacitadas, en primer lugar a aquellas que están en alto riesgo, beneficiará a todos. (…)

La interdependencia se trata, en última instancia, de “nosotros” en lugar de “yo.” Entiende que estamos conectados, por el simple hecho de existir en este planeta. La interdependencia es generativa y se basa en el cuidado mutuo. No vive en la obligación o el derecho, sino en una voluntad amorosa y una entrega sagrada. (…)

Esta pandemia creará millones de más personas discapacitadas y enfermas crónicas. ¿Estamos listes para lo que viene? ¿Estamos preparades para cuántas las personas discapacitadas con condiciones de salud crónicas que habrá?

Te necesitamos. Nos necesitamos a todos. No hay forma de salir de esta pandemia solos. No hay manera de detener la propagación o de presionar a nuestro gobierno, escuelas y empresas para que hagan más, solos. Nos necesitamos unos a otros. Nos necesitamos unos a otros. Nos necesitamos unos a otros.

“Las pandemias, el cambio climático, la contaminación y las toxinas han inclinado la balanza y han aumentado las probabilidades de que la discapacidad sea nuestro futuro colectivo.

Puede que hayas podido desviar la mirada de la violencia estatal, la pobreza y la crisis, pero ¿qué pasa cuando el mismo aire que respiras se convierte en una amenaza? ¿Qué pasa cuando no queda ningún lugar a donde escapar de los desastres climáticos? La seguridad individual por sí sola es un mito. No hay seguridad individual sin seguridad colectiva, y la seguridad colectiva requiere que nadie esté a salvo a menos que todos lo estén.

Necesito que no solo digas que estás en solidaridad con las personas discapacitadas o que valoras la justicia para personas discapacitadas; necesito que la practiques.

Necesito que te involucres en las conversaciones difíciles con otras personas capacitistas sobre las vacunas y refuerzos, las mascarillas, la cancelación de reuniones en interiores, los viajes y trabajos innecesarios.

Muchas personas discapacitadas han estado haciendo este trabajo porque no tenemos otra opción. Hemos estado perdiendo conexiones, siendo gritadas, ridiculizadas, burladas, se nos ha dicho que estamos exagerando, que estamos acosando o controlando simplemente porque no queremos morir. Simplemente porque no queremos que otros mueran.

Simplemente porque no podemos permitirnos el riesgo de estar a merced de un sistema médico que puede considerarnos indignos de tratamiento debido a nuestra discapacidad, enfermedad, clase, raza, color de piel, acento, estatus migratorio, género o tamaño. Simplemente porque muchas de nosotras sabíamos lo que venía, lo que viene, y sabíamos que no podíamos detenerlo sin ti. Y sabíamos que siempre elegirías tu propio confort y placer por encima de la seguridad colectiva, por encima de la interdependencia. ¿Cómo poner en palabras el impacto desmoralizante de necesitar a personas que no te necesitan?

La solución no puede ser que todos contraigan COVID. Eso es eugenesia, porque muchas personas discapacitadas en alto riesgo morirán y quienes no mueran sufrirán complicaciones graves y efectos de por vida en su salud y bienestar debido al COVID y la posibilidad de tener COVID persistente. No compres esta forma de pensar eugenésica que espera que los más vulnerables sean sacrificados. El COVID prolongado es real y le puede pasar a cualquiera.” You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence | Leaving Evidence (wordpress.com)

#CovidPersistente #LlevaMascarilla #RealistaCovid #AutoDefensaSanitaria #CovidSonAerosoles #birdflu #gripeaviar

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid
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Reminder, you can see a bunch of #Queer #Folk #Punk bands in a #Covid safer environment in #Withington #Manchester tomorrow night (Sat 23rd May) from 6-10pm.

https://www.fatsoma.com/e/jbwvjdq2/mask-bloc-family-presents-queer-anarchy-meow

#CovidIsNotOver #WearAMask #MaskBloc

Long COVID Is More Common in Bisexual and Trans People

https://www.them.us/story/long-covid-trans-and-bisexual-people-healthcare-disparities

There is nothing inherent about being queer or trans that predisposes people to chronic illness, including long COVID. Yet the interlocking network of structural healthcare disparities that queer and trans people face — such as lower access to doctors or stigma regarding their gender or sexuality — could partly explain the higher rates, alongside other LGBTQ+ health disparities faced by the community.

Long COVID is hard to diagnose, partly because it encompasses a broad constellation of possible health problems; it can manifest as cognitive impairment, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and some 200 other symptoms. These post-COVID conditions can affect multiple organ systems, last for years, and have shown themselves to be alarmingly common.

In addition to showing higher rates of long COVID in younger adult populations and women, the Census Bureau survey also revealed that trans and bisexual adults are much more likely to report having the disease. Compared to 5% of cisgender men and 9% of cisgender women, 15% of trans adults in the U.S. say they are currently experiencing long COVID symptoms. Meanwhile, 12% of bisexual adults in the U.S. are living with post-COVID conditions, compared to 7% of straight, gay, and lesbian adults. Those rates mirror broader health disparities experienced by the trans and bisexual communities — and point to disconcerting ways our healthcare systems may be failing them.

In a world where transgender people are more likely to live with chronic illness in the first place, this may not seem so surprising. “Of course [trans people] have higher rates of long COVID,” says JD Davids, co-founder of the advocacy and policy group The Network for Long COVID Justice.

“We have lower rates of being treated as humans. ​​People who are denied access to health care, resources, or bodily safety are at higher risk of ill health outcomes, including this massive disabling event known as long COVID.” Davids has lived with long COVID since March 2021, and has also lived for decades with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a similarly debilitating condition.

queer, trans, and bisexual adults might be overrepresented among people with long COVID is that they’re more likely to recognize what long COVID is in the first place. That’s because queer people are used to responding to health emergencies like the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which created a network of advocates who used their experience responding to that crisis in the wake of COVID-19, including by disseminating knowledge about acute and chronic COVID infection.

#MaskUp #WearAMask #CovidRealist #CovidIsAirbone #LongCovid #YallMasking #DisabledLiberation #DisabilityJustice #HealthSelfDefense

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